Christmas Decorations

We decided to decorate our outdoor living Christmas trees. Our first year with a lovely landscaped yard needed some winter accents. We used three hundred lights for each tree with the exception of the tiniest one, which has two hundred lights.

Saturday, December 15th, mother nature chose to add to our decorating. She dropped close to five inches of snow over the course of the day. Our yard was picturesque.

Unfortunately we couldn't stay home, sit by the window and watch it all come down. The little one had a full day of ballet performances. Her youth ensemble performed the ballet, The Nutcracker, in the afternoon and then she was a gingerbread in the ballet, Twas The Night Before Christmas, that evening. In the Nutcracker her solo was that of a Chinese toy. Mrs. Bello was thrilled with her performance. So thrilled that our little girl is ready to move to pointe shoes.

The two weeks leading up to the ballet kept me occupied. I made alterations to her costume, made her little partner's Chinese costume, and made five mouse masks for the little mice. Twice the week of the ballet I stayed up until 2:30 trying to get costumes finished. I'm convinced that the "easy" pattern I used omitted several steps in the making of the Chinese jacket, fooling novices like me into thinking that it easy because there are only a few steps to follow. I suppose the more I sew the better I'll get. I'm sure a more experienced person could have made three jackets in the time it took me to make the one. One of these days when I have time I'll take a couple of classes.

I worked backstage the day of the ballet sewing, hunting for props, and managing the mice. One of my kindergarten students was a mouse. It was fun to hang out with her and my daughter's group outside of school. I watched much of my daughter's performance from the wings. Doug missed the show because he went to graduation.

Doug and I didn't get to see her in her gingerbread role that evening because my school was having it's big fundraiser/faculty party. Every two years we have a huge silent and live auction for donated items. Doug and I didn't outbid any one for items but the basket of oldies music we donated was sold for $135.00.

All in all it was a fun hectic evening. I don't know why everything happens on the same day/night.